"Shanghai Six" to set up common transport system

On Wednesday Transport and Communications Ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization member states (Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan) discussed in Bishkek the bases for setting up a common transport system within the organization.

This first meeting should become a beginning of a serious work on creating "a Great Silk Route from Shanghai on the East Chinese Sea to St.Petersburg on the Baltic", said Kyrgyzstan's President Askar Akayev during his meeting with the participants of the transport ministers' first session.

The creation of a common transport system will become "a basis for the prosperity" of all SCO member states, the President believes.

The session's participants considered a number of current issues, such as creation of a SCO permanent working group on transport, problems of developing international transport corridors that pass via the SCO member states, as well as possibilities of working out multilateral agreements in the sphere.

The meeting also touched upon cooperation in civil aviation and possibilities of providing favourable transport conditions for delivering humanitarian loads to Afghanistan.